The problem was that, though he’d hit McCracken and the dolly bird, he’d missed the bodyguard. In fact, as soon as the bodyguard had pulled a gun of his own, O’Grady had flown. He’d been in such a blind rage, so infuriated to see his schemes come crashing down so quickly and easily that it had briefly overwhelmed all common sense. He’d had one aim only; to teach the bastards a lesson, to show them that he wasn’t someone to be screwed with. You threaten my business, I take you out of the game altogether – that’s the O’Grady way. But the plan had never involved suffering bullet wounds himself. In fact, it had been a very nasty surprise to see that gun. It had never occurred to him that they might be packing heat on their way to a restaurant. To a restaurant, for God’s sake!

Either way, he’d run. Of course he’d run.

And now he was back here, still not entirely sure what he was going to do next.

Even when he’d been absolutely certain that punching McCracken’s ticket was the only way forward, he hadn’t thought this far ahead. Not that it was possible now to sit down and think things through carefully. Because that gigantic bodyguard had seen him, and if he didn’t already know who O’Grady was, he’d doubtless be able to put two and two together and come up with his employer’s most recent target, Walderstone Enquiries Ltd.

So the only thing that mattered at this moment was getting out.

He drew the blind on the window, turned the office light on and threw the briefcase onto the desk. Opening the bottom drawer, he took out his laptop and stowed it in the case, then lifted the carpet in the corner, moved the boards aside and tapped his combination into the electronic panel on the circular steel door beneath. Usually, he kept nothing in the under-floor safe except petty cash, but the last couple of days had been such a whirlwind of fury and fear that he hadn’t really had time to figure out the best way to feed the sixty grand that was his cut from the Dean Chesham job into his normal day-to-day finances, and so had stuck it down here. It was currently taped into six ten-grand rolls. The petty cash was down there too, in a small plastic bag, probably about five grand’s worth. He took it all, fishing it out item by item, and throwing it into the briefcase.